sunshine girl wrote:OK, as a newbie I bow to your superiority. But when I visited Northern Cyprus, I thought it was totally different. It was just a personal obsevation.

Yes it is illegally occupied territory .... so it's bound to be different to free areas. The people there are being ruled by people they have not elected (from Turkey). It is not a Democratic area, which might be what you are more familiar with.

Many changes are taking place there to create an artificial "state" so things are a little "rarefied" .... lots of freely acquired goods etc.

It is generally referred to as Turkish occupied Cyprus and not Northern Cyprus because as you can see if you look on a map of Cyprus, the Turks hold more than one quarter of the country (some in the east and some in the west ... not to mention a chunk of the centre). Nasty stuff the Turks!

Thanks, I shall now refer to it as Turkish Occupied Cyprus. My ex was in the RAF in '74 in Cyprus, so I tend to know how it happened but not the current state of play. I thought the people in the little shops in villages etc. were lovely and very helpful, but the shops and cafes in the touristy areas were totally different, very Turkish

sunshine girl wrote:OK, as a newbie I bow to your superiority. But when I visited Northern Cyprus, I thought it was totally different. It was just a personal obsevation.

Some areas reminded you Afghanistan (including my village) and some other areas were looking like , i repeat like, a civilized areas.Correct?

Ok - is not a secret - we G/cs have a big problem (a big part of us)- we are still looking to find out who we are in regard of Ethnicity.That's our main important -internal problem. In North they have a huge -much bigger problem. They do not trying to find only (many of them) who they are but they are also looking to find in which Condinent they belong, in which international bodies they want to be members etc etc.

And then, above confused people (about internal affairs) are trying to solve a problem (Cyprus problem) which solution requires understanding between both.!!It will be a miracle.

sunshine girl wrote:Thanks, I shall now refer to it as Turkish Occupied Cyprus. My ex was in the RAF in '74 in Cyprus, so I tend to know how it happened but not the current state of play. I thought the people in the little shops in villages etc. were lovely and very helpful, but the shops and cafes in the touristy areas were totally different, very Turkish

Sounds like you have spent some time there .... Are you a regular "shopper" like SSBubbles seems to be?

While the United Nations, United States and Britain now fall all over themselves to appoint 'special representatives' to assist the Cypriots find a solution to their problems, can this process stand any chance of success when the problem itself has been reduced from being an issue of brutal invasion and of the continuing occupation of the sovereign territory of a tiny country by a former regional empire, and is presented instead as a problem between the two communities on Cyprus which they can resolve through intercommunal dialogue?

How many of the international press articles written analysing the problems of Cyprus ever present the story how that 'problem' has been massaged through many years of foreign interference into now being defined as a problem between two communities on the island?

How many of the international press reports on the Cyprus problem clarify how Turkey's role has been reduced from being that of an invading aggressor who has imported hundreds of thousands of its settlers whom it seeks to allow to vote in any referendum on the future of the island, into one of simply whether it 'recognises' the Government of Cyprus and allows Cyprus ships and aircraft to use its territory ?

Will any PHD students in the field of International Politics of Reconciliation choose to investigate what stories there have been in the 60 years of international media coverage about the Cyprus problem which investigate or describe Turkey's policies from the September 1956 events in Istanbul up to current Turkish policy, which many would argue has been solely aimed at destroying the 'reluctant' Republic in Cyprus? Will there be any studies of how Turkish agents on the island have been instrumental in deliberately creating incidents leading to the creation of its own vassal state? What happened to 'self-determination'?

Many will have noted, but few have commented, about Turkey's threats of violence in Cyprus and other abuses of the Republic's sovereignty during the process of the island's bid to join the EU. Having failed to blackmail the EU into not accepting Cyprus' entry, it belatedly jumped onto the bandwagon of trying to influence the island's EU accession in order to safeguard its own interests and promote it's own accession.

Turkey sought to, and succeeded at adversely influencing the content of the UN's Annan Plan in order to maximise the role of the statelet it had created in 'northern' Cyprus, to the extent that the majority population on the island voted against the plan. Through those means, and its blatant propaganda after the Annan Plan was rejected, it still insists the Greek Cypriots (or failing them, then at least the rest of the world) should accept 'the realities' it created in Cyprus.

How are Cypriots classified in the eyes of society? Let us remove the propagandized mud and shift our point of view where things seem clearer. Think about what makes a Cypriot different from every other Cypriot. What makes up a Turkish Cypriot or a Greek Cypriot? Is it religion? Religion is personal and has nothing to do with origin. You can very well have Christian Turkish Cypriots or even Muslim Greek Cypriots. As bizarre as it might sound to you, such individuals do exist. So what would they be? Turkish Greek Cypriots? Non-Cypriot? Thats just preposterous. So we have safely clarified that religion is not the factor that determines what you are in an ethnic perspective.

As a next example, let us take myself. I speak Greek, English and Turkish. Yes I speak all three constitutional languages in Cyprus. The Cyprus constitution states that the spoken languages in Cyprus are Greek,Turkish and English. So what would that make me? A British Cypriot? A Greek Cypriot? How about a Turkish Cypriot? Or maybe even something silly that you would only see in propagandist newspapers like a “British speaking Turkish Greek Cypriot”. Enough with the ridicule. We have clarified that language is not what defines Cypriot ethnicity either.

When we look back into our roots, a long time when our grandparents used to live in peace and harmony with each other in Cyprus, we find the roots of what it truly meant to be Cypriot. We managed to survive all types of oppressions,invasions and unfairness. Yet throughout time it seems as though people knew a way of simply getting on with their lives regardless of the differences their neighbor has to them. That my friends is called co-existence and it was done in a peaceful manner. Look at what our flag symbolizes. Peace! Being Cypriot has a lot to do with peace yet throughout time, fate has not allowed us to enjoy such an embrace. We have learned to live on with our lives in a very mistaken manner; In separation. Life did go on beyond both sides of the border since the division. Yet we have been shielded from the truth for too long. It is quite difficult to know the truth now since there has been so much mud put all over it. It would be safe to say though that the universal truth that binds everything is that too many people have suffered for too long. This suffering is simply being transferred from generation to generation creating incredible problems of magnitude perhaps too large to handle with our current flight path. That my friends are the sentiments of a Cypriot. It is not the common point of origin that defines us but the common points of emotional belonging.

Does this mean that the phrase Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot are wrong? I feel they are misleading because they define two groups instead of one. How about “Turkish speaking Cypriot” and “Greek speaking Cypriot”. I know it sounds longer when it rolls out of your mouth but it surely feels more politically and aesthetically correct! It also makes more sense judging that language has no moral standing to ethnicity at a social level. It is via precision terminology like this that the generations after us will learn to call themselves “Cypriots” and feel it from their inner depths way out to the glare in their eye.

I know its big, I refer to more of the little terminology bits and pieces, the full article is available at: